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Aristophanes: The Complete Plays
Paperback
Published January 1, 2005
About the author
Aristophanes
2,296 books769 followersAristophanes (Greek: Αριστοφάνης; c. 446 – c. 386 BC) was an Ancient Greek comic playwright from Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries.
Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries; Plato singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates, although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher.
Aristophanes' second play, The Babylonians (now lost), was denounced by Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. It is possible that the case was argued in court, but details of the trial are not recorded and Aristophanes caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights, the first of many plays that he directed himself. "In my opinion," he says through that play's Chorus, "the author-director of comedies has the hardest job of all."
Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries; Plato singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates, although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher.
Aristophanes' second play, The Babylonians (now lost), was denounced by Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. It is possible that the case was argued in court, but details of the trial are not recorded and Aristophanes caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights, the first of many plays that he directed himself. "In my opinion," he says through that play's Chorus, "the author-director of comedies has the hardest job of all."
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 11, 2026
this collection of plays deserves to be read slowly, and be savoured as they are so rich. i love the oxford world classic's translations of greek tragedies but paul roche's translation of aristophanes' comedies is absolutely fantastic and really brings them to the present. roche looks at comedy in all its hilarity but also the darker parts it looks upon and does not shy away from. i find the play the frogs to be so fascinating, the dialogue he imagines between euripides and aeschylus is a really profound glimpse into contemporary understandings of tragedy as a distinct literary genre and its evolution across history
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April 1, 2026I'm never finished with Aristophanes. The guy was hysterical - an ancient Greek with whom I'd have loved to have a beer (oops, he was upper class, some wine).
Oh, to be a fly on the wall if Socrates and he ever went at it...
Oh, to be a fly on the wall if Socrates and he ever went at it...
April 8, 2026
This great book contains all eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes. This makes it excellent value.
The translation by Paul Roche into modern, colloquial English is very good. Roche doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to using crude language, so anyone who is offended by bad language will not like it. But if you’re prudish you won’t like Aristophanes’ bawdy plays anyway.
Here are a couple of (not too crude!) examples of Roche’s approach to translating Aristophanes:
LYSISTRATA: Good morning, Lampito, my Spartan darling!
How luscious you look! Quite stunning!
Such clear skin, and that firm body –
why you could strangle a bull.
And later...
LAMPITO: Like Menelaus at the sight of Helen’s melons,
Chucking away his sword when he meant to slay her on the spot.
The Ancient Greek “Old Comedy” of Aristophanes was wild and zany, and full of fantasy, sex, bawdiness, and political satire. It was very different from the “Comedy of Manners” represented by the later Greek “New Comedy”, which in turn influenced Roman drama and much later writers such as Moliere.
The background against which Aristophanes (and also the great tragic dramatists such as Sophocles) was writing was fifth century BC Athens. This was a high point of culture, which rested on the Athenian democracy of the time, but also on slavery and on Athens’ growing empire. Democracy in Athens was a great advance, but it excluded women and slaves. (It is possible, but not certain, that slaves and women were allowed to attend the Athenian theatre. There were certainly no women actors – men played the female parts.)
So there has understandably been much debate about Aristophanes’ views on democracy, slavery and women. Roche rightly says that “...his political outlook was conservative.” But to get more detail on this we need to go beyond Roche’s introduction and look at books such as G.E.M de Ste. Croix’s “The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World” and “The Origins of the Peloponnesian War”.
Aristophanes seems to have been a conservative democrat who thought that radical democracy involved the masses being duped by demagogues. For example, in “The Frogs”, he calls (via the chorus leader) for citizenship rights to be given back those who had supported the oligarchic coup of 411BC. Ste. Croix says that Aristophanes was a “snob” who didn’t like the “demagogues” (who were rich but not from aristocratic backgrounds) because they often took the side of the lower classes against their “betters”.
In the play “Wasps”, Aristophanes mocks the old man who is addicted to jury service. But Ste. Croix points out that “The Assembly and in particular the courts must have given the poorer citizen a considerable degree of protection against oppression by the rich and powerful.”
Of course, Aristophanes took slavery for granted. But slaves are at least generally shown with humanity, and there are no racist-type “jokes” aimed at them.
When it comes to women, it has been pointed out that the play Lysistrata, for example, contains a mixture of social reality (for example showing the difficulty women had in leaving the house), “comic” sexual stereotyping (through male eyes) and the crazy world of the Old Comedy.
In “The Poet and the Women” Euripides is mocked as being anti-women, but it is Aristophanes himself who is getting laughs by stereotyping women as “deceitful boozers”. (Though to be fair, the women get in a few digs against men, too.)
Of course we can enjoy Aristophanes, and Roche’s excellent translation, without all this analysis. But it can add to our enjoyment if we know something about the background to Aristophanes and his world.
The translation by Paul Roche into modern, colloquial English is very good. Roche doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to using crude language, so anyone who is offended by bad language will not like it. But if you’re prudish you won’t like Aristophanes’ bawdy plays anyway.
Here are a couple of (not too crude!) examples of Roche’s approach to translating Aristophanes:
LYSISTRATA: Good morning, Lampito, my Spartan darling!
How luscious you look! Quite stunning!
Such clear skin, and that firm body –
why you could strangle a bull.
And later...
LAMPITO: Like Menelaus at the sight of Helen’s melons,
Chucking away his sword when he meant to slay her on the spot.
The Ancient Greek “Old Comedy” of Aristophanes was wild and zany, and full of fantasy, sex, bawdiness, and political satire. It was very different from the “Comedy of Manners” represented by the later Greek “New Comedy”, which in turn influenced Roman drama and much later writers such as Moliere.
The background against which Aristophanes (and also the great tragic dramatists such as Sophocles) was writing was fifth century BC Athens. This was a high point of culture, which rested on the Athenian democracy of the time, but also on slavery and on Athens’ growing empire. Democracy in Athens was a great advance, but it excluded women and slaves. (It is possible, but not certain, that slaves and women were allowed to attend the Athenian theatre. There were certainly no women actors – men played the female parts.)
So there has understandably been much debate about Aristophanes’ views on democracy, slavery and women. Roche rightly says that “...his political outlook was conservative.” But to get more detail on this we need to go beyond Roche’s introduction and look at books such as G.E.M de Ste. Croix’s “The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World” and “The Origins of the Peloponnesian War”.
Aristophanes seems to have been a conservative democrat who thought that radical democracy involved the masses being duped by demagogues. For example, in “The Frogs”, he calls (via the chorus leader) for citizenship rights to be given back those who had supported the oligarchic coup of 411BC. Ste. Croix says that Aristophanes was a “snob” who didn’t like the “demagogues” (who were rich but not from aristocratic backgrounds) because they often took the side of the lower classes against their “betters”.
In the play “Wasps”, Aristophanes mocks the old man who is addicted to jury service. But Ste. Croix points out that “The Assembly and in particular the courts must have given the poorer citizen a considerable degree of protection against oppression by the rich and powerful.”
Of course, Aristophanes took slavery for granted. But slaves are at least generally shown with humanity, and there are no racist-type “jokes” aimed at them.
When it comes to women, it has been pointed out that the play Lysistrata, for example, contains a mixture of social reality (for example showing the difficulty women had in leaving the house), “comic” sexual stereotyping (through male eyes) and the crazy world of the Old Comedy.
In “The Poet and the Women” Euripides is mocked as being anti-women, but it is Aristophanes himself who is getting laughs by stereotyping women as “deceitful boozers”. (Though to be fair, the women get in a few digs against men, too.)
Of course we can enjoy Aristophanes, and Roche’s excellent translation, without all this analysis. But it can add to our enjoyment if we know something about the background to Aristophanes and his world.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews